BenQ TK850i True 4K HDR-PRO Smart Home Entertainment Projector powered by Android TV | 3000 Lumens | 98% Rec.709 | Lens shift & Keystone for Easy Setup | 3D Projector for Binge Watchers and Sports

This review is for the GP500 model. Wow, this is a tremendous projector. I dont think I can ever go back to watching moves on my normal sized TVs. The picture quality is outstanding. The clarity on a huge 125 screen is mind blowing. The color contrast is excellent, bright scenes will make you squint your eyes and the dark scenes are very cinematic looking. The projector still does well even with a little ambient light, but its fully glory is only seen in total darkness. The sound is excellent, surprisingly. I can postpone my need for a sound bar (for now). All the features such as auto focus, auto keystone, etc are very helpful, though not perfect. I found the auto-keystone not working great when the projector is at a long distance and off-center. When the projector is closer it seems to work well. The projector is relatively light and small, so its easy to move around and position. Overall, I am REALLY impressed. I hope this projector will last a long long time. Theres only 2 hdmi ports, which is fine enough, I will end up needing an hdmi switch to hook up more things to this projector though. This projector is also LED, so it should last quite a long time. I will update this review in the future if the projector does not hold up well.

High CP ratio

I regret buying this. I felt like when I initially got it set up I was disappointed in the picture quality for how good the specs say it is, and thought I should have returned it then. Instead, I decided to give it a chance and tweek the settings to make the picture look ok. The image is very dark. As noted elsewhere, this is no where near 2000 lumen output. Having come from much less expensive Optoma and Epson projectors in our living room setup, both DLP and 3lcd, I cant say its worth the price premium. This unit is very dim, it must be absolutely dark to use. Trying to turn the brightness up severely washes out the picture. I dont see how anyone could ever use the Eco mode, to only further reduce the brightness. Now to the current problem. I have a red led warning indicator that suggests a failing color wheel. BenQ has stated that they will not honor the warranty for the unit. I am waiting to see what the cost will be out of pocket for the repair. I will soon have a ~$1500 light bulb. This was my first and likely my last BenQ projector.

The unit came wrapped in a protective plastic that when we took it off left a big sticky mess all over the unit that does not come off.

In 7 months ownership I haven’t had any HDR due to it changing white colors to caution yellow, then about 2 months ago an area in bottom left quadrant got some dead pixels (solid white). The part that final pushed a review is today when it wouldn’t turn on at all! Green lights come on, but no lamp or fans follow. Seems to be a semi common issue with them. I always had it plugged into either a Monster or APC surge protector, and it projects on a 110” silver ticket 4K screen with all appropriate cables to fully enjoy this highly recommended projector. Part 2! Big piece of you know what!!! PERIOD!!! NO QUESTION ASKED!!! So the company did in fact replace the first hunk of junk, and the second just failed too. It has had burnt out pixels almost since the day I got the replacement, and today 06/07/22 I turn it on got zero screen, unplugged it, and the screen is there with about 70 decibel burnt out cooling fan freaking out. COMPLETE WASTE OF MONEY!!!!!!! I could if bought a Samsung or LG 75 inch 4K for the price this thing set me back, and I wouldn’t of had to warranty one, and have dead second one. Things work great for a few months then practically self destruct. So now I have a 110” wall mount screen, 120” portable screen, wall/ceiling mount, and mobile adjustable stand that don’t do me now good for anything. Glad I bought a 65” LG C1 Black Friday 2021 for the bedroom it’s better gift games anyways.

The picture was fuzzy and would white out any type of oily skin (forehead)

I’m coming from an Epson Home Cinema 3500. Had it for 4-5 years and ran into the “auto iris error” which seems to be somewhat common with some Epson models. I am looking to get it repaired, however I was hoping to take the opportunity to try out a different brand while I sent my Epson in for repair. After a lot of research and watching several video reviews, I settled on the Benq HT3550. This true 4K projector looked legit and everybody raved about it. I was very excited to give it a try. I’ve never experienced light leakage from a projector before but almost everybody talked about how it was an issue in the previous model, but Benq got it right with this one. I have to tell you, in my opinion this is a pretty big deal. Call me OCD if you want but to me there’s no reason for any projector to be putting out such a distracting light border. I included a picture but please know the image cannot capture the prevalence of the border. In person, it is extremely noticeable. I marked how far out the border goes with the yellow line in the picture. You can see it better without the image on the screen, but it looks like I simply need to keystone the image and zoom in to fit the screen, right? That’s why I included the image of the picture on the screen so that you could see the image fills the screen, keystone is great, but you still have the light leakage. To be fair, my wife says that it doesn’t bother her and when you are watching something on the screen, you don’t really notice the leakage as much. However, I do notice it and it really bothers me. Have a mentioned in the review yet that I’m a little bothered by this, ha! Sorry, I just can’t explain how people are overlooking this issue. The best explanation I have read is that all DLP projectors have a little light leakage and people sort of chalk it up to being something you deal with. Bottom line is it is a superb projector and image quality for the price...IF (and it’s a big IF) you are OK with a 6 to 8 inch light border around your screen. I’m not so it’s going back. It’s really unfortunate because I was really excited about the potential of this device.

For background I have owned the benq w1070 for 5 years or so. Which has performed wonderfully. I have had my eye on the 3550 for a little while. Having pre ordered the xbox series x I figured it was time to upgrade my dedicated theater room to take advantage of 4k standard next gen games. I already own an xbox one x and 10 or so 4k uhd physical movies. Now that I have mounted it properly to the ceiling to get the image up to size for my 120 inch screen I can give an opinion on its performance. The clarity is stunning. The picture attached to this post was taken from my couch with my phone. It doesnt truly convey the experience, but I think its a good example. Film grain is obvious, so I found that the best quality in terms of clarity was from digital films on uhd discs. Avengers Endgame looked amazing to the point that I think the image is superior to a movie theater. The factory settings on the projector are close to perfect. The brightness is excellent in my dedicated dark basement theater room on a 120 inch retractable screen. Some key facts to keep in mind. This model uses pixel shifting to create a true 4k image from a native 1080 dlp chip. Whatever technological trickery they developed here works, end of story. My guess is upgrading to a native 4k projector would could/would be an improvement, but honestly I cant see a difference and that upgrade is thousands of additional dollars. I have a nice Sony 4k tv in my living room and I personally feel you cant fully appreciate the benefits of 4k unless the screen is huge, now that I have tested that theory I am convinced. Also, a key consideration for me was 3d. Like my previous w1070, this model supports 3d, so I cant still watch my large library of 3d blu rays. If you have never seen 3d with active glasses on a dlp projector its an incredible experience that I highly recommend. One last note, there is apparently some lag on most of the 4k projectors for gaming. I am a grown up who still plays games, not a competitive gamer. I tried out several games in 4k on my xbox. No lag issues I was able to identify. I also had to order a new ceiling mount as the hole pattern for the 3550 was totally different from my previous projector, but that was expected. To summarize, for the money this projector punches way above its weight class. If you have the space to dedicate to a home theater this is a worthy investment. Its a no brainer upgrade over the benq w1070, which for me was the best value of any audio visual equipment I have ever purchased. I am super excited to get my next gen game system plugged into this bad boy.

Purchased directly from the BenQ site. This is my first projector and I am so happy I went with BenQ. I have been doing some research on projectors for a few months now, and BenQ products had better reviews that some of the more expensive stuff out there. The image quality is just outstanding. We paired the projector with a 110 Silver Ticket Products screen and WOW! The image does look better in a darker room (as it is described), but the image is still great with the lights on. Highly recommend this item.

Even without our screen up yet it gives a very crisp, clear picture!